Cutting the cable - looking for advice

[Algernon Moncrieff]

I'm getting hosed for telecom. Recently, I learned that Direct TV Now has 90% of the programming my wife wants for like $30 -$35 a month.

I want to run up to 4 Tv's. Realistically, only 3 would go at any one time. I'm keeping landline phone for now because our locality has a bad track record with cell phone 9-11.

Currently, the internet portion of my Bill is like $85 / mo for like 145 MBPS. I can switch providers and get like 1 GBPS for about the same price. My thought is getting Roku boxes for each TV and the fastest WiFi router I can afford. My main question is local channel access. HDTV over the air can be iffy in bad weather (when we need it most) and I'm not sure Direct TV currently offers streaming of our local channels.

Aside from the local channels, must-have channels include (don't judge): Weather Channel, ESPN, ESPN 2, Freeform, Hallmark, TCM, and AMC.

Looking for technical advice, suggestions, and any experience I can learn from. Thanks in advance!

[mythology]

1. Here's a DirectTV site that says what local channels you should get

http://www.directv.com/DTVAPP/global/contentPageIFnorail.jsp?assetId=P4880022#h:573.404

I suspect it varies based on dish location and such.

Personally I "cut" the cord years ago. I use the quotation marks because I spent several years living where I couldn't have cable, but also I'm not home much, so cable always seemed like kind of a waste to me for practical reasons.

[Algernon Moncrieff]

2. Thanks. Keep in mind Direct TV Now isn't the satellite service

It's a relatively new streaming service designed to compete (principally) with Hulu.

On edit: what I'm trying to say is I'm not sure they work the same for local channels.

[msongs]

3. on wishes cable selections were a la carte eh? no cable here too much unwanted junk nt

[Jersey Devil]

4. Vader Streams

$15 per month and you get all the sports everywhere, all the premium movie channels and all the cable channels plus plenty of local channels. This is my reseller for Vader Streams: https://boommedia.org/vader-streams . Yeah, OK, sometimes it is glitchy, but for $15 bucks you can't beat it.

If you want local channels you can buy an HD antenna about the size of a piece of paper for about $15-$30.

PS: Channel list:
https://tvservice.club/vaders.html

[TexasBushwhacker]

5. For movies, there's a lot that you can stream

Of course there's Hulu and Netflix for less than $10 a month each. SlingTv is $25. There's no contract, so I alternate them. You can add HBO to Hulu or SlingTv for $15 a month, no contracts. Cinemax and Showtime are cheaper

There's Vudu that has a lot of movies you can stream fir $2.99 to $4.99, but they have a large collection of movies that are free, and they change every month.

Tubitv just has free movies. Many will have an occassional commercial, but they aren't edited for length or content like regular broadcast TV. Lots of indies and older films. Crackle is similar, but is owned by Sony so you'll find a lot of Sony films there.

I just found a service called Kanopy.com . They are hooked into the public library system. If you have a library card, you set up an account and you have access to all the films your library has available for streaming. You can watch 4 free programs per month. They have lots of independents, foreign films and documentaries, as well as educational programing like you would see on PBS

[Beausoleil]

6. You might check YouTube TV

to see if it's available in your area.

If you have a good antenna, obviously you can get HD broadcasts from your local network affiliates.

There are DVRs available that allow OTA recording. We use Tablo and love it.
I use an outdoor antenna mounted on the roof and get about 31 channels and I am about 50 miles from the nearest big media market.

Other than that we have Hulu, Netflix, Amazon Prime and Sling TV all for much less than what we were paying for Dish Network. With Roku and Amazon Fire apps, there is a lot of free content out there.

[Algernon Moncrieff]

7. Update

I saw this thread: https://www.democraticunderground.com/10181095617 and thought I'd post an update.

We are taking the process slow. I have installed two Rokus (we have 4 total TVs). We already had Netflix and Amazon in addition to cable; we added PBS passport (I get it as a donor) and CBS All Access and one of our local station's local news streams.

Next step is that we will be stress testing to see if running two internet streams to TVs while a kid Skypes a D & D game will adversely impact picture and streaming quality,

Probably looking at DirecTV Now as an option for most "cable" programming, but we are keeping an open mind.